Summer Waining

August 10, 2012 at 7:55 pm (Uncategorized)

I never expounded on the list of events in that last post. It probably won’t happen. Let’s just get real here. 🙂

At this point, I’m probably going to have to do it again. Let’s start with my children.

P is all attitude these days. Summer vacation is drawing to a close – school starts in 4 days. Right now, she’s not pleased with me. Everything is “boring”. Reading is boring, math is boring, doing the dishes is boring, being forced to play downstairs in their rooms is boring. She has probably lost some of her math skill over the summer; I wasn’t diligent at all at having her read or having her do math. She will be in 3rd grade, and she already loves her teacher (one of the other 2nd grade teachers that is moving up to 3rd grade). I am determined that this year I am going to get to the school and do some volunteering so that I’m involved in her education. Her hair is growing out, its to her shoulders and she wants to cut it again but I’m not sure that’s a great idea. Its so pretty with lighter reddish streaks from all the sun time this summer. Her teeth are kind of a hot mess. Her permanent teeth coming in just don’t have enough room so they’re coming in crooked and behind each other. They are also a little white-streaked but kinda yellow. Makes me feel like I’ve failed her somehow. They’re not awful, but not great either. She’s still a beautiful young lady. She is turning 8 in a month, and is getting ready for her baptism – probably in November. The October baptism date for our ward is on the 13th, and K will be coming back into town that morning from Texas from a training for work. Having him arrive so last-minute makes me nervous, so I think we’re going to move it to November. She has the 1st two articles of faith memorized; we need to start working on the 3rd. I am her primary teacher at church – that’s an interesting change for me but I’m working on it.

K2. He is my trial and a joy at the same time. Such a loving, fun little boy. But so mischievous – and he DOESN’T LISTEN!! Oh, he drives me nuts. I will say, “go downstairs and look in the fridge for such-and-such.” He will go downstairs and turn circles in the middle of the room because he only listened to part of the instructions and doesn’t remember he has to look in the fridge. He loves his sisters so much. But he also harasses them to the point of insanity – doesn’t seem to understand “STOP!” He will be going into preschool at the school this year. Tuesday through Friday (the whole school is 4-day school week – weird – and we don’t get spring break), 8:15-11:15. I have to take him and pick him up, which is weird since it will take 2 minutes to drive to the school, and I send P on the bus at 7:30 to the same place. Hmmmm. Makes me wonder how important the bus ride is – she’d have more time at home to get ready if I just took them together. He is so excited to be going to school, and I just know he’s going to do well. He’ll be in the class with his little best friend that lives right next door. We finally got a good caricature of him at Casa Bonita today when we went to celebrate D’s birthday. We got one of him and of D. So much better than the freaky caricature we had done there by a different “artist” almost 3 years ago.

And D. It was her 2nd birthday last Saturday. She is adorable. So stubborn. Attitudinal. Very tall for her age (been wearing 3T stuff for a while). Still blonde with blue eyes. So we have a redhead with hazel eyes, a brown haired brown eyed boy, and a blonde with blue eyes. She has a lot more words now, but she doesn’t talk nearly as well or as much as P and K2 did at this age. I try not to worry about that, especially since she seems to understand most everything just fine. Even if she doesn’t want to comply. She says “thank you” as “tattoo”, “teeth” has evolved into “tee” and “cheese” is “chee” and “please” is “eee”. “Sorry” is “Ahwee”. She says all the little neighbor kids’ names really well, but has a hard time with her siblings’ names. Relationships are important to her and she often assigns strangers the designations of “momma”, “dadda”, “baby”. Toys, too. Big ones are parents, little ones are babies. She still takes naps, but sometimes if there’s too much going on and we’re out and about, she doesn’t get one. Craaaanky ensues. She loves to be read to, and often demands it by tossing books in your lap like missiles and yelling “weee” (read) with a bob of her head and raised eyebrows, like “woman, you should have been doing this already without me having to ask!” She is going to drive me nutso when both the kids are in school. I’m not looking forward to that part of it.

I AM looking forward to the enforced routine of the school year. The summer has been a manic play-session with neighbor kids, rarely planned dinners, gardening, swimming, and HEAT.

My garden had pretty good results. We got carrots, green beans (just this last week), corn, lots of squash and squachini (squash/zucchini hybrid I managed to make) that are still producing, corn, raspberries, spinach. It is an overgrown jungle now since I kinda lost interest after the more delicate plants were harvested. The squash plants are still producing, as is the corn and green beans. But, hello, jungle, the rest. I did not enjoy weeding since I never seemed to be up early enough to do it before the heat set in. I don’t think we’ll be in this house for planting again next year, a shame since I learned a lot this year with my first garden ever.

I have done a few more fitness events. The Sailin’ Shoes 5K in the Springs on June 16th. My time was …. oh my gosh I can’t remember my time. It was somewhere in the vicinity of 36:20, or close to it. It was a great race, though I stopped to tie my shoe about 5 blocks from the finish. Um, dumb move. I think I would have beat 36 minutes if I hadn’t done that. I hadn’t gotten much sleep because of sleeping with D in my mother-in-law’s bed the night before. She’s a bed hog. Anyway, my mother came with me and then I went back and spent more time with K’s aunt and uncle who were in town from Arizona. His aunt is fighting cancer and isn’t sure she’ll win so she was trying to see as much of the family as possible. We were there with them Friday and Saturday. It was so fun, and D was in love with Uncle M from the instant she met his boisterous, loudmouth self.

On July 21st, I did Fitness on the Rocks at Red Rock with my friend A. I was unfortunately fighting a UTI that day, which sucked rocks. But the event was awesome and FREE, and I will be doing it again next year barring a catastrophe. Its a huge fitness concert – I did 3 classes. Zumba, Turbokick and a body conditioning boot camp at the end. It was so hot, the benches burnt our hands for the push-ups, and we were both so sore we were having trouble sitting down on the toilet for a couple days, but it was worth it. We went to Golden afterward, exhausted but full of endorphins. We ate at Whole Foods and went to a movie and then headed home. It was great.

July 28th, I did a 5K mud run with my MIL, SIL, and her two teenage daughters. I proceeded on the third obstacle to sprain my ankle pretty badly, and I’m still recovering. It was a tire obstacle, football-player style, and I caught my foot and hit hard, twisting my ankle something fierce. I’ve had some panic about not being able to work out normally, but I’m almost back to full-use, which is a relief. The mud run was pathetically lacking in mud. I won’t do one again, though, even if it promises tons of mud. Too much risk of injury, which screws up my plans for weight loss and fitness.

I have been “training” my friend J. Most recently (since my injury and since she got her kids back from her ex for the school year) we haven’t been as gung-ho, but she quit Curves so she could work out with me and I have made her almost barf and almost cry quite a few times. Not that I’m trying to, but our fitness levels are very different, as are our strengths. I still love zumba, and hope to return to full-impact at it on Monday night. It might be returning to Platteville from Johnstown, which would be great for me since that puts it a 2 minute walk away. I’ve considered getting my personal trainer certification or becoming a zumba teacher, but I haven’t committed to anything yet.

I’ve discovered some great recipes this summer. Chickpea blondies that kids and most adults love. Zucchini bread pancakes that are great. Black bean brownies are a norm around here. And I’ve discovered some things to do with quinoa that rock. Along with my typical granola bar sprees.

K still hasn’t gone to 12 hour shifts, but his hours are pretty consistent. We’re still living paycheck to paycheck but we suck at managing our money. I despair of us ever getting a handle on it.

I’m pondering some major life changes. No moves or tragic family stuff. Just some habits of my own that I’m trying to change and improve on that I think impact my life and my family’s life. It all feels very deep and dramatic to me inside my head, but it probably isn’t that big a deal in reality. But the distraction of working on these mental problems throws me off my eating-right game, and I’m struggling to get back in the zone. I’m hovering between 189 and 185. I’d love to get below 185 and stay there and keep going down. I have high hopes for the routine of the school year getting me back to the weight loss.

We celebrated D’s birthday today by going to Casa Bonita. It was a fun time. She was a little traumatized by the talking on the microphone, the echoing acoustics in there, and the dark ceilings at first. But she got the hang of it. We got some great caricatures of her and K2 and had some fun in the arcade. Someone handed us a wad of tickets that helped us cash in for a couple lame prizes in the arcade, and the food was mediocre as usual. But it was worth it for the caricatures for $3 each, plus $4 in tip. We had strawberry creme pie (Edwards brand) for cake with 2 candles. She blew them out like a trooper. And then we opened her presents from a KMart stop on our way home – a Mr. Potato Head, a little horse that you squeeze the tail and the mouth opens with noise and there’s a flashlight in there. And a bouncy ball. No biggie, but she’s entertained.

Got the other 2 birthdays coming up, one in September in and one in October. Going to do a balloon avalanche into their rooms on the morning of – something fun I saw on Pinterest and I’m actually going to follow through! Ha!! Not sure what else we’ll do for those 2 birthdays but I’m determined to have a plan more firmly in place than we did for D’s. I suck at that.

Become really close to A and J, my neighbors and friends. Love hanging out with them – they probably hate how I just come over (often with my kids) and hang out and don’t leave. Gosh, that sounds awful. I’m pretty sure I’m not overstaying my welcome and things will change as school starts and the rhythm of homework and activities changes for all of us. But its been a great summer.

I’m hoping to run the Platteville 5K on Harvest Days a week from tomorrow, and hoping my parents can come up for the festivities since K will be working. Later in the month, K is going to Ohio for a court date for his sister’s custody battle. School for P starts the 14th, for K2 the 21st. Its going to take a few weeks before I get used to them not having school on Mondays. But it could be cool – a day for activities and such. 3-day weekends!

I’m hoping with the changing habits that I mentioned above, I will be writing more often and won’t have so much ground to cover. I’ve said that before, so we’ll see.